'People die every day. If you don't want to get hurt, don't play the game.' - Mike Milbury

It's only been a week since I forever swore off the idea of addressing the National Hockey League's unfathomable stance on hits from behind, blows to the head, running players into the boards and the kind of verbal tributes to the malicious nonsense that makes Mike Milbury a growing legend across Canada.

But given the fact that sarcasm is wasted on the young and, it would appear, the former general manager and coach of the New York Islanders, I'll make this simple and straightforward:

Yes Mike, people do die every day - though fortunately for you the people beaten with their own shoes have a remarkable survival rate. Still the ultimate goal of a society and even most professional sports leagues is to try and keep as many people alive and relatively safe as humanly possible.

It's a basic concept, something related to common sense, common decency and the somewhat vague notion - at least in your world - that sports should not only be competitive, fun and entertaining, but as reasonably safe as the guiding powers can make it.

The games should be safe for the people who watch them - who knows, perhaps if they had protective netting up in your day you might not have been able to get into the Madison Square Garden seats to beat that poor fellow with his own shoe - and safe - or as safe as reasonably possible - for the people who play them.

That (and again I'm keeping it simple here) should be a basic tenant, something akin to why they don't put sewage treatment plants on the same site where they purify the drinking water, why people who drive must first submit to and actually pass a driver's test and why soldiers who go into battle are generally equipped with protective gear along with something that requires more sophisticated training just firing off a size 10 slip on.

I mention all this because Milbury made his "let'm die" speech on the CBC last Saturday night, the night many of the general managers were in Toronto for Hall of Fame weekend and for the General Manager's Meetings the following Tuesday and Wednesday.

Judging from their response, it wasn't all that well received.

That's not to say that change is coming right away, but it may well be coming.

There was talk about a possible rule change debate at a later meeting in March, and for the most part the GMs at least gave lip service to the idea that there might be a problem and they might breakdown into committees someday in the future to at least debate it, but for now and what will undoubtedly be the remainder of an already vicious and (injury wise at least) costly season nothing will be done.

Now at this point I should point out that "nothing will be done" is not exactly the same as saying "something should be done but not right now" and if you are looking to the usual glacial standard by which change is both contemplated and completed in the NHL one could take hope from that.

Several general managers, including a somewhat less truculent Brian Burke, GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs, made statements indicate that the game might have a problem regarding certain kinds of hits and that perhaps the game isn't "just fine" the way it is and that maybe, upon further reflection and comprehensive review, something "could" get done regarding protecting players from what some of the GMs are now calling "legal blindside hits".

A few are almost as comfortable with the concept of that as fans are with the idea that players, their families and their administrative support group can get an all-access pass at an HIN1 flu shot clinic, but I will not be my usual sarcastic self here.

I see this as a good thing, something that falls well short of a promise and something that will allow the carnage to continue on for seemingly longer than Alexei Yashin's 10-year contact (another attaboy to you Mike) but at least the threat of a hint of a possible consideration of what might someday be regarded as a problem that can or should be dealt with is on the record.

Seriously, this is a good thing and a far better idea than coming forth with that ratty little proposal to attempt to do away with staged fights, which the GMs announced last early season after getting pressed to clean up the game in the wake of the death of senior league player Don Sanderson.

This time the GMs - or at least some of them - are on record as saying that the "head shot" issue should be taken seriously.

Consider this from Burke: "I, along with a few other GMs, asked for this to be put on the agenda," he said. "I have not changed my view on an automatic penalty, I have no appetite for that, but the criteria we apply when we evaluate these, we have to look at when a player has no chance to avoid the hit."

Burke was making his point regarding the hit Philadelphia forward Mike Richards laid on Florida forward David Booth that left Booth concussed, hospitalized and still out of the Florida lineup weeks after it happened. Burke went to great lengths not to indict Richards as a dirty player and said he was actually the kind of player "you want in the game" (an argument that gets an endorsement here), but that he was troubled by that hit and that there might be too many like it.

Burke also said the league needs to protect what he deemed to be clean hard hits and mentioned one that felled Chicago forward Jonathan Toews.

"The Toews hit, that's part of our game," Burke said . "If Toews had looked up, he would have seen it coming. I'm not sure Booth had any chance to avoid (his), and I just want to review the criteria."

Now, one could argue that it's hard to "look up" when you're looking back to see where the puck might be, but that's an argument for another time. Worth nothing now is that though that may not seem like much of a statement, for Burke, a man who consistently defends Todd Bertuzzi's hit on Steve Moore, it is clearly a change in either attitude or perception, maybe both.

Then there is this one from Montreal General Manager Bob Gainey: "When an item keeps coming back to the agenda, it shows we need to make an adjustment [to how head shots are regulated on the ice]", said the both thoughtful and well respected GM. "I think everyone agrees more needs to be done."

Again, nothing in the realm of "fix this right bleeping now" but at least a call to the other GMs that the status quo has to be looked at and maybe should changed.

And then there's Carolina GM Jim Rutherford who said upon the conclusion of the meetings that he is "confident" the GMs will present a formal rule change recommendation regarding hits to the head for the 2010-2011 season.

Rutherford didn't go so far as to spell out the changes but he did indicate that players who can't truly see a hit coming (or can't reasonably be expected to anticipate a check from behind or to the side) will be better protected by a well thought out new rule.

He put his thoughts to words based on what he said was a change in attitude from some of the GMs who had been opposed to change but, in this meeting at least, spoke openly of the problem and, perhaps, a need to formulate a solution.

Now I acknowledge that we've heard all this before and that the GMs are somewhat famous for addressing issues that are on the front burner of media with the suggestion of change before burying them behind a well-cooled stove when the positional races for the playoffs are upon us.

And this time around they certainly have good reason to pontificate what with one of their former brethren seemingly advocating death as an acceptable option.

Still, I can't help but believe many think that "Mad Mike" might have gone just a bit too far with his latest rant and that, given the amount of high-priced talent piling up on the injured reserve lists that this time they might be open to recognizing the obvious.

For as Gainey also said: "[the spring meetings would be] "a chance to take the varnish off past prejudices."

He wasn't looking forward to dealing with the problem because "it's an issue that can be looked at different ways", and he made a point of noting numbers that were presented at the meeting that indicated teams lost 750 "man games" to concussions last season in the NHL.

"That's one statistic," said Gainey, "then you hear the total number of man games is something like 40,000 for the season. It changes how you look at the number."

That's true and that is a part of the reason why creating a solution is so difficult, but when you take away the numbers and start talking about the very real possibility that players with names and with families and with people who rely on them are losing their livelihood and that they may someday even lose their sense of sense to dementia and other concussion related problems it should again change how you look at numbers.

When you look at numbers as people, well most everyone would seem to understand that people matter.

And that protecting people is something civilized people have tried to do dating back to a time before even the National Hockey League was born.